“Lord?  It’s snowing and cold outside.  I feel lost and alone inside. What do I do?”

“Fly, my child,” my Lord responds.  “Lift your head, raise your arms, close your eyes and let your spirit soar. Let it soar above what you can see. Soar above the cold. As you then open your eyes and look about, you will see the cold is only a temporary perception that you feel.  The fire within you, the warmth, never fades away and is never overtaken by anything outside of you.

But you, my child, must learn to live in the spirit, in the warmth of my love and my care, rather than in what you see.  What you see and give attention to is the world of circumstances, of people acting and reacting to or ignoring you. You look for signs to determine how you should act and react.  This brings you to immobility and to coldness. This is void of life. It is this way of living that causes the snow to cover over the warmth of our love in your heart, in your soul.”

“Well, I’d say that about sums it up, Lord.”  I am saddened at how quickly I seem to turn from the Lord and our love and warmth, to become engulfed in a snowstorm of circumstances, doubt and confusion.  So quickly it happens.

“Not so quickly,” the Lord interrupts. “Not really. You court it. You tire of the warmth and you go looking for something else, something to stir emotion within you – be it good or bad emotion, just something to stir life within.  You have not yet appreciated the warmth of my love to you, in you, around you, with you.”

“I’m afraid and doubtful of that love,” I say, shaking my head at the heart of a child that does not yet trust that all good comes from my God and my God is all good.  Do I really go out looking for what will make me suffer?  Can that be? I think to myself in disbelief.  It’s as though I feel I am alive and have worth if I’m suffering.  If I’m experiencing joy and peace, I’m not satisfied.

“Yes. Consider what that says about you,” the Lord says to me.

“It is obvious I do not yet know who I am and my value, my worth, my gift to this earth.”  Actually, I have an inkling of it, but I shy away from it.  Who am I to be so bold? What have I to give?  I’m drawn to fall in line with the masses and create a life of suffering, lacking fulfillment, being incomplete, always questioning.  I recall a vision someone once had for me: I was an eagle soaring in the sky high above the earth, not a chicken pecking on the ground.

My reaction?  But I don’t want to be an eagle flying alone in the sky. I’d rather peck the ground with all the other chickens, Lord.  Silly girl.  Sad girl.  Unfulfilled girl.

“So Lord, looks like it is time for me to soar like an eagle – like a majestic, glorious and bold eagle in full flight high in the heavens.  Looks like it is time for me to break from the snow- covered minutia and fulfill my purpose.”

“Yes, my child. It is time.”

“And I can do it,” I answer as I begin to shake the snow from my limbs to raise my hands upward. I lift my head and stare squarely at the sun, drawing its warmth to my insides and melting what held me. I lift my body onto the tip of my toes to prepare for take-off.